Somewhere on the outskirts of reason... Or where good television can be found.

Monday, July 28, 2008

AC/DC 'Who Made Who'

So I finally got to see the new Batman flick, The Dark Knight. And here’s how it went down:

I was in the theater with plenty of time to see the trailers. I saw no upcoming movies that cause me to say out loud, “I’ve got to see that!” After an eternity of coming attractions, the movie started. The sky was bright and the music was happy. Not something I’d expect from a film entitled The Dark Knight.

Steve Carrel’s name popped up on the screen followed shortly by Dwayne Johnson’s real moniker (formerly The Rock).

It looked like the folks were going to run the Get Smart movie instead. As soon as I felt it necessary to inform the management, someone a dozen rows in front of me got their butt into action. Since I was on my feet, I decided to go ahead and squeeze out any remaining juice before taking on a flick that runs over 2 and a half hours.

When I got back, a bank was being held up. No biggie. I’m sure I didn’t miss anything major during the opening credits. I just sat back and let the movie suck me in… And it did!

The hype about Ledger’s Joker is dead on. The dude had Frank Miller’s version of the Joker down in a major way… Dark, edgy, homicidal, and sickly comical. Too bad there won’t be a return performance… Oh well.

With at least 10 minutes of the film left to play out… The screen went dark, the house lights came up, the ambient music kicked in, and the advertisements started to flash on the screen.

I didn’t let anyone fight this battle for me, so I followed the rest of the slightly annoyed patrons to the front office. The manager met us in the lobby and said that he knew what was going on… Either way, we were getting a free ticket. We could came back another time or see the rest of The Dark Knight in the other auditorium. We were told just to see him after we were done and he’d give us a freebie for next time.

I wanted to see the end, so I checked out the last 35 minutes in auditorium 15. After the movie, I decided to let the free pass go because I felt the manager did me right. It was just one of the weird little digital mix-ups that was beyond his control.

I rated The Dark Knight with 4 out of 5 stars on Netflix.

Sunday night, after that god-awful NASCAR race in Indianapolis, I took my nephews Colton and Preston to see Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D with Christine (frequent reader with occasional comments) and her daughter Gwyneth.

I’m a sucker for 3-D movies. I’ll watch a documentary about paneling if it’s filmed in 3-D. So if it’s a movie targeted at kids… Why not give my sister and brother-in-law a quiet couple of hours?

Journey had awesome 3-D effects! Well worth the price of admission and the $2 dollars for the special glasses.

Without the 3-D effects, I’d say that you’d get more enjoyment by watching Jiffy-Pop do its thing on a stovetop.

I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix, but I added that it would only get 1 star without the awesome 3-D effects.

When I see a movie in a theatre, 9 times out of 10 I'm with my daughter, seeing a kid's movie. So, while I didn't find the movie itself (sans 3-D) to be as bad as you did, my standards are admittedly a little different. It wasn't "So Good I Would Have Seen it Without a Kid" (Wall*E, Cars)neither was it "Eye-Bleeding Awful" (The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl). More like, "Neh, It's a Kid's Movie - Whaddya Expect, Citizen Kane?"